


The Road That Leads to You

by isyotm



Category: Merlin (TV), Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s04e20 The Rapture, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 20:44:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isyotm/pseuds/isyotm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In their new life, Merlin and Arthur are separated. Arthur is too busy fighting demons and vampires and all manner of supernatural creatures, but Merlin, trapped in suburbia, can't help but feel like something is missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Road That Leads to You

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this photoset](http://merilins.tumblr.com/post/47953282598) and [this ask](http://sir-leon.tumblr.com/post/57031480344/what-if-like-dean-was-the-reincarnation-of-arthur-and).

Merlin and Arthur have lived hundreds of lifetimes together. They have been lovers, star-crossed stories more tragic than Romeo and Juliet and simple romances that remind those privy to them the true meaning of love. They have been brothers-in-arms, fighting side by side for a freedom that they may never witness but are willing to die for just the same. They have been rivals, embroiled in silly competitions that push them to the brink so that they can be the absolute best at whatever role that life gives them. They have been brothers and childhood friends, growing up and growing old together as they live and love in each other’s sphere of existence.

Throughout the millennia, as their roles change with time and each reincarnation, they have been everything to each other, living out their lives with different names, but always at heart remaining Arthur and Merlin. This is their destiny; two sides of the same coin.

Until now.

Luck is fickle, as volatile and inconstant as the sea, and in their new life, the threads of fate become twisted, confused.

In their new life, Arthur is born first, to a young, beautiful couple named John and Mary Winchester. Mary has many secrets, her husband many demons, and the heavens and its hosts watch their marriage with nervous, eager eyes.

Arthur has a great destiny in this life, as in all the others. In this incarnation, he is named Dean and his mother tells him that angels are always watching over him as she tucks him in at night and reads him bedtime stories and hides the arguments she and her husband seem to always come back to. John and Mary are not a perfect fit, but Dean and his brother _must_ be born and so the cupid assigned to them works his magic as best he can while the clock ticks away, counting down the remaining years of Mary’s short life.

Four years later, Sam is born. He is Dean’s brother, his companion, his fate, and the destined vessel for Merlin’s soul. Except that Merlin’s soul has already been placed in another body chosen for a great destiny, the child who will grow up a man named Jimmy Novak and then an angel named Castiel. Instead, Sam’s body is occupied by Arthur’s half-sister, ancient enemy, and occasional friend, Morgana.

For the first time since the moment their lives became eternally intertwined, Merlin and Arthur live most of their life apart, completely free of the influence of each other. Arthur’s life is complicated by one tragedy after another—the loss of his mother and home in an unexpected fire, his father’s descent into unrestrained alcoholism, the beginning of his and Morgana’s life as soldiers rather than children, the irreparable rift between the father he idolizes and the sibling he has sworn to protect above all else—and so he’s too busy to notice Merlin’s absence, but Merlin can’t escape the feeling that something is missing. His suburban home is quiet, occupied only by him and his doting parents and the memories of his past lives with Arthur. His mother comes home to hear her young son’s patient babysitter tell her stories of her son’s vivid imagination. “Jimmy spent all day on another adventure with his ‘friend’ Arthur. They were pirates today, Mrs. Novak.” Other evenings, Mr. Novak walks in to find Merlin embroiled in a fierce battle with a pillow as he yells for Arthur to get behind him while he takes out the enemy forces with a well-placed spell, telling Arthur that Mordred won’t win this time.

They both wonder how their son, still too young to read, is so well-versed in Arthurian legend, but they put it down to Jordan the babysitter’s unusual reading choices.

The Novaks encourage their son’s lively imagination because they believe he’s lonely, aching for the companionship of others his own age. Isn’t that why children invent imaginary friends? They try for another child while Merlin is still young, but a visit to their doctor finally dashes their hopes.

“Mrs. Novak, to be quite honest it’s a miracle that Jimmy was born at all, let alone healthy and without any mental or developmental, uh, deficiencies. I’m afraid I won’t be able to say the same of any future children. But, you know, if you _do_ have set your heart on another child, may I suggest adoption?”

He’s not the most tactful doctor, but the message is loud and clear, and so Merlin’s only companions are his fading memories. He has very few friends at school, mostly because they find his insistence that they include Arthur, whom they can’t see or touch, in all of their games a little _too_ weird.

Arthur grows up a warrior who trusts very few people and doesn’t believe in anything. Merlin grows up a deeply religious man who loves deeply and believes in the good inside of everyone he meets. Arthur’s purpose in life is to destroy the monsters that prey on the human race with whatever weapon Morgana’s research tells him he needs. Merlin has yet to find his own purpose and that knowledge gnaws away at him, even as he accomplishes the goals he’s set for himself, things he’s always wanted—to find a job that pays well (he works mostly on commission but his boss has told him time and again that he has “the right personality for sales”), get married (he met his wife Amelia at college and has loved her dearly ever since), and have children (he has one daughter, Claire, who is the spitting image of her mother, brilliant and beautiful and fiercely brave). Each night at dinner and again before going to sleep he expresses his thanks for the blessings he’s received and privately begs for help in his search for fulfillment, his purpose, whatever it might be.

He gets an answer when he is 29 years old. He’s exhausted, relaxing in front of the TV after a long day at work and a long pre-dinner helping Claire revise an essay for her English class while he cooked. He smiles softly, thinking about her determined face.

“I _need_ to do well on this essay, Daddy. I can’t be a politician if I’m not well-spoken.”

“Politician?” he asked, completely lost.

“Claire wants to be president this week,” Amelia called from their bedroom where she was slipping off her shoes.

“I’m going to be the first female president,” she announced with utmost seriousness.

“I see. In that case, let’s look at that introduction one more time, shall we?”

“Okay. I’m still not happy with this sentence,” she told him, pointing at her thesis.

“Why don’t you tell me what you’re trying to say first, and then we’ll go from there.”

He doesn’t notice the lines of static blurring the screen at first, too caught up in the memory. It isn’t until the TV starts to hiss and then progress to emitting a high-pitched whine that he pays attention.

He claps his hands over his ears, a voice echoing loudly in his head. It calls him two names at once, both distinctly different and equally his own.

_Jimmy Novak._

_Merlin Emrys._

“Claire?” he calls, or tries to. “Amelia?” But the voice doesn’t sound anything like either of his family members. It’s unfamiliar and completely genderless.

_You have prayed for your purpose to be revealed to you and your patience is now rewarded: You have been chosen._

He’s overwhelmed by a sense of peace as the TV continues to emit whines and white noise, the screen a snowstorm of black and white and grey.

_Your body is of an ancient bloodline, destined to be a vessel of the angels of Heaven. Your soul is seeking a piece that it should not have been separated from._

“Arthur,” he whispers, the name of his childhood imaginary friend, the companion on all of his pretend adventures, springing immediately to his lips.

The voice speaks two names at once again.

_Dean Winchester._

_Arthur Pendragon._

_You are to protect him, as you have always done. You will be asked by the angel Castiel to purify yourself and prove your faith._

_The path before you is not easy, but it is the one you have walked a thousand times before and will walk until the end of this world. Prepare yourself and wait for the sign._

The voice fades with the TV static and the sound of his show comes back. He opens his eyes and finds himself on the floor, legs stretched out at painful angles. He tries to process the information he’s just received, make sense of it, but he feels overwhelmingly tired and he drifts off to sleep, rest erasing the incident from his mind until the first time Castiel speaks to him directly.

 

* * *

 

_Jimmy._

_Merlin._

The voice is different this time, still genderless but it feels more familiar, like the voice of an old friend. It says both of his names at the same time like the other voice though.

“Castiel,” he murmurs in his sleep.

_Yes._

“What must I do?” he asks.

_Know this: I will protect you through these tasks. But you must believe. In yourself and in me._

“Okay.”

He goes back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t think about how strange this is, speaking to angels, hearing voices, until the night Amelia walks in on him performing one of the tasks Castiel has set. They’ve slowly increased in difficulty and the amount of trust required of him; when she sees him, he has an arm elbow deep in boiling water, watching in fascination, feeling the steam on his face and the heat radiating from the pot, as his arm remains completely fine.

“What the hell are you _doing_?” she shrieks, horrified, and he hears something fall to the floor.

 “It’s okay, Amelia,” he tells her, pulling his arm out of the water to pick up the groceries that are rolling around all over the kitchen. “It’s okay.”

“Jimmy…”

It’s been so strange lately to hear people call him Jimmy. He remembers being a child and insisting on going by Merlin until his first grade teacher put her foot down. “No nicknames,” she told him and banned Arthur from participating in classroom activities, refusing to give him an extra worksheet for Arthur to complete or another piece of paper for Arthur to draw on.

“Look.” He shows her his arm, a little pink from the change in temperature but otherwise completely fine.

She steps backward, her face clearly afraid. “What’s _wrong_ with you?” she asks softly.

“Nothing’swrong,” he tells her with a reassuring smile. “He asked me to.”

She looks anything but reassured, especially with his last statement. “Who asked you?”

“Castiel. To prove my faith.” He suddenly remembers the rest of the message he received. This is how he’s purifying himself. So he can be Castiel’s vessel, so he can protect Arthur—or as Arthur is known in this life, Dean Winchester. He decides that would only worry Amelia more. “Look, I’m fine.” He shows her his arm. “It’s a miracle.”

She shakes her head at him and takes the groceries from him, putting them away. When Claire returns from a friend’s house, Amelia ushers her to her room. “Daddy’s not feeling well,” she says.

“I’m _fine_ , Amelia,” he insists. “How was your day, Claire?”

“Good. I got an A+ on my essay. Mr. Chapman says he likes my writing voice. Oh, and I got an A on my math test too.”

He smiles, overwhelmed with pride, and asks her to help him set the table for dinner.

That night, he has a strange dream. It’s dark, stiflingly hot, the air filled with screams, and he’s searching for something. The only light seems to be radiating from his body so it’s difficult to see, but something pulls him down and to the left, the sense that what he’s looking for is close by. Another tortured scream rends the air, but this one seems to rip right through him and all he wants to do is find the soul that’s in so much pain and rescue it, heal it and hold it close. This is the soul he’s here to save. The soul he’s been ordered to raise from perdition.

He reaches out, his hand so large that it lays low the demonic souls that try to cling to him, to pull him down or tear him apart, and grasps the shoulder of a man standing in front of a torture rack.

 _You do not belong here,_ he says in a great and terrible voice that sends demons running, shrieking and covering their ears. They can’t bear to hear the language of the angels.

The man doesn’t respond, but that doesn’t matter. Even to hold him like this is enough, feels like he’s finally filled a hollow piece of himself. He grasps the man tight in his hand and flies, the light that comes from him clearing a path ahead of them.

Suddenly a loud voice echoes through his head with a simple message: _Dean Winchester has been saved._

_Dean._

_Arthur._

He smiles in his sleep, turns over, and hugs his pillow closer to him, a weight lifted from his chest. When he wakes up, he feels the best he has in five months.

 

* * *

 

The tasks escalate quickly after the water incident, as do the number of strange dreams. Castiel asks him to cross the street with his eyes closed, to sit outside in the cold in only his swim trunks, to trust that Castiel will protect him no matter what. He completes each request willingly, eager to prove that he’s worthy of being Castiel’s vessel, eager to find the reason for his existence. He watches as Arthur, Dean, climbs out of a coffin in the forest, as Arthur is reunited with his brother who he calls Sam but who Merlin recognizes as Morgana and the father figure Arthur calls Bobby but Merlin fondly recognizes as someone he once knew as Gaius. He watches over them and protects them from the monsters in their path as much as he can, although he doesn’t have much control over these dreams or the unbelievable power he seems capable of exerting in them.

He doesn’t like to hide things from Amelia but he knows that she’s worried about him. She gives him strange looks over dinner and whenever he suddenly leaves the room, he feels her trailing behind him, worried he’s going to hurt himself. He’s tried to explain that Castiel would never let him get hurt, that he _needs_ to do this, but he knows she doesn’t believe him.

One night, long after Claire has gone to sleep, Amelia asks him to sit down at the kitchen table. She clears her throat, folds her hands, unfolds them, and folds them again.

“Amelia?” he asks, a hint of amusement in his voice.

“Gwen called yesterday.”

He nods. Gwen is their next-door neighbor, a sweet young divorcee who babysat for them when Claire was little. He wonders if she’s the Gwen he remembers from some of his lives with Arthur, the ones where he was Arthur’s friend rather than his lover. He blushes, embarrassed of such thoughts, especially in front of his wife.

“She said you were sitting in the _snow_! In just your swimsuit! Are you _crazy_?”

He sighs. “I _told_ you. Castiel asks me to do these things. Look at me. I’m completely fine. Not sick at all.”

She sighs. “I—I want you to go to therapy.”

“What?”

“I think that you need to talk to someone. A professional.”

“I’m not sick.”

“Please, Jimmy. For me,” she begs.

He agrees, if only because of the way she looks at him, fear in her eyes like he hasn’t seen since the night Claire was rushed to the hospital because of pneumonia, her tiny three-month-old lungs struggling to inhale enough air, and they sat up until dawn, wondering if their life as a family would be over before it’d really even started.

The therapist she finds for him, name suggested so quickly it’s clear she’s been looking into this for a while, throws out the name of a medication for schizophrenia the second he sits down in her chair and he dutifully has the prescription filled at CVS on his way home. He’s supposed to take the pills two times a day, but he never swallows a single one because Castiel asks him not to.

_You are almost prepared. I am sorry. Please believe that this will be over soon. Have faith._

He goes to work, comes home, and is a good husband and father to his family, just as he has always been. He tries not to bring up Castiel anymore and he sees Amelia relax, peace between them as it hadn’t been since the water incident.

Until the afternoon she finds the bottle of pills in the back of the medicine cabinet in their bathroom, still full with the ball of cotton in it to prevent mold or moisture. It’s clear that it’s never been used and she texts him at work to come home immediately.

He leaves as soon as he gets the message, an hour earlier than his usual five o’ clock, concocting a story about stomach pains, worried out of his mind that either she or Claire has gotten hurt or sick. Claire still hasn’t had chicken pox and he read somewhere that if they take too long to appear, they can be extremely painful.

“Amelia?” he calls when he gets home. The house is dark, but her car is in the driveway so she must already be home.

“In here,” she calls from the kitchen.

“Hi, what happened?” He moves to give her a kiss on the cheek, but she twists her head away. She motions instead for him to sit down and places the bottle of pills between them on the table.

“Jimmy, what are you doing?” she asks, exhausted.

He sighs. “We’ve been over this. I—”

“Honestly, I don’t want to hear it anymore. Just take the pills. _Please_.”

“I’m not sick.”

“Jimmy, take the pills.”

He wants to rip his hair out. “I know that this is hard to understand, but he chose _me_.”

“Castiel?” she asks sarcastically. “The angel?”

“He’s _spoken_ to me, Ames, a dozen times now.” He reaches for her hands and soothingly rubs his thumb over the back of one hand. “You believe in God, don’t you?”

“Of _course_ I do, you know that.” And he does. They’ve always been so involved in their church, volunteering for the Homeless Ministry and Habitat for Humanity and countless food and supplies drives for every holiday.

“And angels?”

“ _Yes_ , Jimmy.”

“Then why is it so hard to believe one could be talking to me?”

She gives him a look. “Because you sell ad time for AM radio! Because—”

“He told me I’m _special_ , Ames. He said it’s in my blood.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know. But I know I’ve been chosen for a higher purpose.”

“For what?”

He bites his lip, stalling. How can he explain this? That his whole existence has been lived for exactly one person, one person who he’s been following through time, living and dying beside for millennia, and that that person isn’t her? “This is a blessing,” he says instead. “Have faith.”

She takes a deep breath and looks him squarely in the eyes, her gaze closed off. “If you won’t take your pills and you won’t go back to Dr. Estanyol then I’m going to take Claire to my mother’s in the morning.”

He tries to stop her—“Amelia, _wait_ , please just _listen_ to me”—but she leaves the table, stomping down the hallway with purpose and he hears the sound of fabric and zippers. She’s packing a bag.

He’s at his wits’ end and he does the only thing he can think of: He prays. He stands up, goes outside, and looks up at the evening sky, arms spread.

“I want to help you,” he says, “but I’m about to lose everything… _Please_ , Castiel.” He feels more than sees a warm light envelope him and he smiles as the familiar voice speaks to him.

_It is time. I must walk the earth so that you may protect him._

“I understand. Promise my family will be okay and I’ll do it.”

_They will be protected by my brothers and sisters._

That’s the best answer he could’ve hoped for. “Then yes.”

The light grows brighter until it feels like it’s burning him, forcing itself into the seams between his cells and infusing itself into his bloodstream. His brain suddenly explodes with knowledge of thousands of lifetimes before and after the ones he’s lived, images of men and women he doesn’t recognize, of angels, of places he’s never been. Just when it feels like he can’t contain anymore and his body is going to fall apart around him, the light goes out as suddenly as if someone had thrown a switch.

_This will not be easy._

_Jimmy._

_Merlin._

“I understand,” he whispers to the presence of Castiel in his mind. He takes one last look at his home and walks swiftly away, each footstep carrying him miles away.


End file.
